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Wonderful & Strange: Wild at Heart at Last This issue of Wrappedin Plastic is unique t mean that it’s coming out four months Lynchs work quit (though that might be symbolic). Its |ue because the film were covering, Wild Lost Highway—a :ing thesemi-officially unofficial Da- ich magazine, we wondered if there had missed befor< Ve had jumped to the thing m wrong conclusior thoroughly enjoy. Maybe that would happen with Wild )een released on DVD co: at Heart. We also talked to people who did love the film and found out why they liked and realize what a great film they Perhaps wi ilike his other work. We admire his tart watching the film from time Then > ch his boundaries—but that doesn’t id after ten or fifteen or thirty again. Ant tee success. Were sad to say that we w Wild at Heart as one of Lynch’s What was it about the filr forks. Read the essay and see if you •that kept us from finishing the 'ith us. And if you don’t, feel free to tly, as the DVD announcement DON'T MISS OUR NEXT SPECIAL ISSUE! Interviews! DAVID LYNCH! MARK FROST! And lots more! Special Giant-Size Issue! $9.95 If you can't find this issue at your local comic book shop or book store, order directly from Win-Mill Productions. Wrapped in Plastic is $ 12.00 U.SJ Canada; $15.50 foreign overseas. These prices include shipping! Order online at www.wrappedinplastic.com! l-Mill Productions (Dept.W74), I 76004 Produced, written, and Vol. 1 #74 www.wrappedinplastic.com editedby CRAIGa nMd ILLER 2 Wild atDT Hhaeev aWidrtI PL yendcihto’srs pmroesste ndti stahpepiro cianstien tgh afitl WmA (Hd ei¬s JOHN THORNE spite some thrilling moments) while contribut¬ ing editorJohn Mitchell argues for the movie’s greatness. mi 14 NarrJaatmivees TReycahn neixqaumei nines M thuisl hexotlrlaaonrdd iDnarirvye f ilm. mu 19 Lost Efover rSy oymeaer T thimeree ’s some TV show that critics proclaim the “new Twin Peaks, ” but ABC's hit series Lost may be more like Peaks than any other contender. 22 The Fantastic Four The WIP editors, along with Charles Hoffman, chime in on Mark Frost’s summer blockbuster. 27 The World Spins A new Lynch movie, LSLAND EMPIRE, is fi¬ nally on the way! WrtffUi. MGM’s recent release of the Wild at considered the black sheep. Undoubtedly identical illustrations by Lynch) titled The Heart special edition DVD provides an Dune has its problems, bulforourmoney, A ngriestDog in the World. AUofthesepnojects opportunity to look aga in at the 1990 film Wild at Hearts the m show Lynch in top form. that Lynch was working on simultaneously The basic story is solid enough, and with the first season1 of Twin Peaks. The TheRightTime actuallyintriguing. OnecancasilyseeLyndi movie gameredsplitreviews common with It’s common knowledge Lhat WAH responding to die foundation: young lov¬ David Lynch’s work: it won the top prize began as a novel by Barry Gifford (who ers Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune are (die Palme d'Or) at the Cannes Film Festi¬ would later collaborate with Lynch on lost madly inlove, but circumstances frustrate val, butit received only one Oscar nomina¬ HfghunyarrtWQ'sHotelRoorn). Producer/ theircontinuedrelationship. Lula’s modier tion (Diane Ladd for supporting actress) director Monty Montgomery' (who later and not a single Golden Globe nomination appauedastlieCowbcyimWM inayearthat won in three major had purchased die film rightsandwantedto categories (best television drama; Kyle direct it himself. He asked Lynch to read her in die murder of Lula’s father, or be¬ MacLachlan for leading actor in a drama d te Ixxik, andbothagreed that Lynch would cause Sailor rejected hersexual advances, series; Piper Laurie forsuppoitingactress). be the one to make die film instead. The orboth. Beyond Marietta isa “wild” and 'lhewin atCannes was controversialat “weird” world diathasbomedownondie the time, with some critics (notably Roger writing the screenplay in record time (and— AsstandardHollywood fate,the A look back at Lynch’s would amount to nodiing more than send mentalistic entertainment. But con- sideringLynch’stendencytoemphasizethe violent, funny, darker and more pessimistic aspects of fa¬ milial and romantic love(going all the way back to his 1970 student film 7he Grand¬ and controversial film mother, and up to and including his most recent film, MulhollandDrive), die tempta¬ tion for Lynch must have been irresistible, Ebert of the ChicagpSun-Tn?ies)\oudiy<xm- with Gifford’s blessing—making signifi¬ particularly the opportunity to take the plaining that the film not only wasn’t die cant changes in the story). He used many “wildness” of love versus the “weirdness" best of die festival, but that it wasn’t par¬ actors he had worked with before eitherin ticularly good, p films or on Twin Peaks—Harry Dean get away with. Stanton, Isabella Rossellini Jack Nance, Lynch has stated that, he saw die story David Patrick Kelly, Grace Zabriskie, as “a really modem romance in a violent SherilynFenn, FreddieJones—with Laura worid—a picture aboutfinding love in hell.”2 Velvet) playing one of die Moreover, he was intrigued by die two central characters: “Sailor was very mascu¬ faces—editor Duwayne Dunham, director line and yet he respected Lula and was able of photography Frederick Elmes, musician to stay strong himself. And he kept her Now' that fifteen ye Angelo Badalamenti, and production de¬ easier to evaluate the film in 1 ight of Lynch’s signer Patricia Norris. totally feminineand, you know, respected previous and subsequent films instead of To thisgroup wasaddedan impressive Sailor and kept him equal to her." being caught up in die Peaks hysteria of the line-up of new faces (for a Lynch film): for exploration of Lynch’s theme of duality, conclusion—Palme d’Or and Academy later appear in the “Blackout” episode of a beloved theme that has been a part of Award nomination aside—that the fi Im is Lynch’s Hotel Room), Diane Ladd, Nicolas every one of his films. Love/hell. Mascu- 2 of Lynch’s Cage (six years before he won an Osca r for LeavingLas Vegas), and odiers. balance(anotherofLyndi’sfavorite themes) It wasatimewhenLynchwasona roll that he found intriguing—a balance that creatively. He’d created Twin Peaks with was not attained by a merging of die gen¬ “Lynchian,” ends up being significantly dif¬ Mark Frost and die album floating into the ders inlosome sort of androgynous syndie- ferent from cverydiing else he has done— Night withjulee Cruise and Badalamenti. and this i ncludes Dime, which is most often Right around the comer wereIridiistrialSym- phony No. 1 (also with Cruise and ‘Not, as is commonly mistaken, the second iChrmiclesi^bosviAi season. The film premiered in May 1990at Frost), and On Cannes, so clearly it was completed before Robert Engels). TP's second season began. amusingseries c imic strips (each with be equal.”3 A cinematic presentation of such a relationship could certainly be entertaining.3 4 5 The “love in hell” theme is more standard fare, but, again, a Lynch twist would certainly make it into some¬ thing unique. If the basicstory, the themes, and the creative talent were all in place, what went wrong with the film? We realizewe probably have the minority view in this regard, but we think it’s quite possible that the film’s flaws were overlooked because of the time of its release following the first season of Turin Peaks? at a moment when everyone was hyped upand eagerly awaitingthesecondseason. In that moment, Lynch could do no wrong. Or could he? An Uneasy Synthesis Lynch’s rare inability to synthesize the comedic and dramatic elements of the movie. All of his work combines these two. Eraserhead, his nightmarish first feature film, is bizarrely—almost uncomfortably—funny in several places, perhaps most notably in the famous dinner scene. (Lynch admitted to the humor in his WIP 65 interview: “All films, like life, have humor in them... .But yes, there is humor in Erasedoead. ”6) Three of his post- WAHffims—Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, mdMulhollandDrive—are almost unrelentingly dark (especially the first two), yet there are still moments of levity. However, these other films were primarily dramas with brief moments of absurd humor. In WildatHeart, the comedy is much more dominant—at least an equal element, if not the main aspect. Lynch described the film as “a road picture, a love story, a psychological drama and a violent comedy.”7 Mixing so many different elements is alwaysa challenge, andLynch is usually ableto pull it off (especially in Twin Peaks), but in WAH the synthesis is unsuccessful. Why is this? Aside from On the A ir, Wild at Heart may be the only full-out comedy in Lynch’s history, but OTA was not saddled with intermittent scenes ofwrenching drama and gruesome vio¬ lence. This joltbackandforthin WAH creates a schizophrenic film. The scenes of the “weird” world exhibit Lynch’s typically bizarre sense of humor and offbeat characters, but the intensity of the deaths (and there are several), along other gruesome scenes, conflict with the comedic tone. The violence isn’t merely graphic, but off- 3Rodley, p. 199. 4Note that Lynch relates the equality specifically to masculinity and femininity. There are, of course, other ways thatsuch equality could be presented. Perhaps the most talked-about media presentation of an equal partnership in the nineties was with Agents Mulder and Scully in TheX-Files, but there, the male and female stereotypes were intentionally reversed: female Scully was the cold, scientific, rational investigator, while male Mulder was the passionate, emo¬ tional believer in extraordinary (i.e. unscientifically proven) occur- 5It’s impossible to know, but we wonder what kind of critical response the film would have received if it had been released just one year later, following the second season of Turin Peaks. 6"An Interview with David Lynch,” Wrapped in Plastic 65 (June 2003), p. 4. 7Rodley,p.l93. Wrapped uv Plastic as every film’s protagonists, but what is the ity? Of course not, because he barely has a outside. We aren’t feeling what they feel, point in having two such unsympathetic functioning brain. But what can be said of butsimply watching dispassionately as two characters at the heart of a film, especially at her, to hear such cliches met with awe and characters supposedly in love go at it again the heart of a love story? This is especially not to wonder just what a dim bulb she’s true of Sailer, who has no personality ofhis sleeping with? But that’s just it—she may The reason die overall passionlessness own outside of that he’s appropriated from be a bit more interesting than Sailor, but is “astonishing” is that one of Lynch’s great¬ Elvis. Okay, that’s not quite true. His est strengths is his ability to present the personal traits include dim-wittedness and emotional power of a scene effectively. an inability to control his temper. He had Dispassionate atHeart Consider the nihilistic entrapment that The superficiality of the characters is a Henry is feeling in Eraserhead (plus the keeps reminding us) and has lived a fife with problem in and of itself, but it symbolizes a elation he experiences during his visions of laigerproblemin WUdatHeart, andhere we die Lady in the Radiator), or the padios of just “wiid at heart." That’s a legitimate are getting to the real downfall of the film. John Merrick in The Elephant Man, or the foundation for an interesting character, but Despite the title, WAH is astonishingly distress of Sarah Palmer at finding her unfortunately that’s pretty much all the passionless. Sure, there’s lots of sex and daughter missing (who can forget die fa¬ viewer ever learns about Sailer. He’sinlove nudity featuring Sailor and Lula, but it’s not mous slowpan down the telephone cord?), with Lula. Fine. But why should we care? even asemotionallyengagingas any by-the- orthe fear Fred Madison experiences as his Lula’s history is about as sparse as numbers episode of Reel'ShoeDiaries. Be¬ world closes in on himself in Lost Highway, Sailor’s. She was molested by one of her cause Sailor and Lula are so vapid, the or Alvin Straight’s joy as he looks skyward father’s business associates and had an abor¬ audience is not inside their characters, but at the end of The Straight Story? These aren’t tion. Her meandering comments are seen as profou nd by Sailor (not that that’s saying ,4One exception is notable: Dem’s perfor¬ surprisingly well. It’s the emotional punch a lot); at one point he even remarks that die mance as Lula near die end of the movie as that the film needed throughout, and, in way her head works is “God’s private mys¬ Sailor says he’s leaving her. In a previous fairness to Dem, she is almost as effective tery.” When she ponders the possibility scene Lynch set up Lula’s anticipation of inafewotherscenes. But Lynch dampens that their love will last forever, he’s blown seeing Sailor, so Sailor’s sudden decision to the emotional power by keeping die audi- away. He’s never considered die possibil¬ leave devastates her, and Dem pulls it off Rodley: IW/dflWasif is quite dif¬ ferent from a lot of your other movies, in that it's veiy much on the surface, very colorful, very fastandverybusy. Wasthisstyle intended to reflect that sense df lunacylthat the “world is coming unglued")? Lynch: Yes. Now we’re kind of getting used to the world being read the book, it wasn’t so much It’s all well and good to have a colorful, but at what cost to the other aspects of the film? As Lynch told us in WIP65, “What is great is going at a certain speed diat doesn't keep you from catching the necessary ideas 15Rodley,p. 197. Wrapped tit. Plastic